Answer the phone!

Before I begin, I'd like to say that I did well in Charlotte, NC. I got a Superior for both my Children's Sermon and my Human Video Ensemble, Large. If any of you are familiar to the way scoring happens at Nationals then you know that it's okay but not good enough to put you through to round 2. Although with my Children's Sermon I got a 35.(something high) I was close to 36 points which would have put me through to the next round. Oh well.

On to the post for today. I was doing my devotion today (I'm currenly reading the book of Romans, Chapter 5). I came across a passage of Scripture that said the following:

"Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right."

Romans 5:18-19 (theMESSAGE)

While some people might say that it's taking the sentence out of context, the part that says "One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right" tells me something about ministering. when God calls you to tell someone at work, or school, or in the bathroom, or whatever and you say yes you could be saving that man/woman and the generations that come from him/her.

But if God tells you to minister to the person grunting away in the stall next to you and you say no, you've just made a horrible mistake. You could find out later that that person wasn't constipated but cutting himself. He made a wrong slice and bled to death. There were no reported attempts to stop the bleeding from the man because he knew of no reason to go on living.

Your one bad move or one wrong descision could not only affect the man at the present but the generations that follow him too.

Thankfully God is a God of multiple chances. He tells us to do something and when we say no, he keeps trying, and keeps trying, and keeps trying. It's like a phone ringing off the hook and finally someone who has gotten overly annoyed at your ingnorance to not answer the thing shouts, "ANSWER THE PHONE!"

But in the end it's your choice, will you answer the phone or let it ring until the Caller finds someone else to call.